Petty Theft
by wideopeneyes
Summary: Gippal takes Rikku's things just for fun, and it drives her crazy. Birthday fic for record cover.


Rikku tossed her hair over her shoulder, frowning at the distinct lack of sound. Normally, whenever she made a sudden movement, the beads in her hair clicked together in a comforting splash of noise. But now they were silent.

Suspicious, she bounced up off the sofa and headed for the nearest bathroom. She peered into the mirror, seeing a mop of long blonde hair bereft of all the ornaments she'd meticulously woven in earlier in the morning. All of her braids were unraveled, and only the bare minimum of pins remained, holding the mass of hair up.

Next she checked her arms – three ribbons had been pilfered from her armbands and two of her bracelets were missing. She turned her head, examining her ears – somehow both of the little feather earrings she had been wearing had vanished. Unbuttoning the pouch at her waist, she inspected its contents.

Which was nothing. Of course.

"_Gippal_!" She shouted. "Give me back my stuff or I'll _kill_ you!"

"What stuff?" He asked innocently, from behind her.

She was not fooled by his guiltless expression. She'd known him for too long to put much stock in his innocence. Brushing past him, she took the stairs two at a time until she came to his bedroom. Shoving open the door, she headed straight for his nightstand.

"You know," Gippal began dryly, watching from across the room, "it's generally considered impolite to enter someone's bedroom uninvited."

"It's _also_ considered impolite to steal," she muttered, yanking open the top drawer. A jumbled pile of trinkets lay there, obviously filched earlier in the day.

"Aw, come on." He splayed out his hands in a gesture of placation. "What's a little petty thievery between friends?"

"_Really_ freaking annoying. _That's_ what it is." She scooped up the wad of things, seeing at least twenty minutes of detangling in the near future. "If you're going to steal my things, you could at least organize them so they don't get tangled. I swear, I lose all my best rubber bands that way."

"I can't help it if you never notice. I'm just a better thief than you are." He shrugged, following her back down into the living room.

"That's nothing to brag about," she retorted scornfully. "You keep your mitts to yourself or learn to organize!"

--

After two more trips to his bedroom to rescue her stolen trinkets, she got smart. On her next visit, she brought with her a small plastic bin with tiny compartments, each of which had a neatly written label: _Rikku's rubber bands, Rikku's jewelry, Rikku's beads, Rikku's ribbons_.

"Here," she said, shoving it into his hands, noting his expression of wry amusement. "Use it next time."

"How sweet." He set the bin aside, hooking his fingers through her belt loops and tugging her closer. "Does this mean you're accepting me, flaws and all?"

"You wish." She grinned cheekily up at him. He'd been subtly hitting on her for weeks, doing his best to get his feelings across without actually making any sort of real declaration of intentions, and she'd been enjoying watching him squirm. And for being so irritatingly cocky, she was going to make him admit his feelings before she gave him any sort of indication of where her feelings lay.

"Don't I get a kiss at least?" His tone was decidedly sulky as she brushed past him on her way to the kitchen.

"What for?" She asked breezily, grabbing a can of soda from the fridge.

"Because I'm your friend?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Paine's my friend and I don't go around kissing _her_."

"I've got a nicer butt than she does." He folded his arms, daring her to disagree.

She snickered behind her soda can. "Don't let her hear you say that. She can be sort of vain on occasion, and she counts her butt among her best features. If she thinks she has competition, she might shoot yours off."

"Nah." He dropped into a chair beside her. "She's better with a sword."

Rikku shrugged noncommittally. "Either way, you'll lose your best feature."

"I'll still have my pretty face, though."

She patted his hand consolingly. "Keep telling yourself that, if it makes it easier."

His eyebrows shot up. "You don't think I'm pretty?"

_Pretty_ was not the word. Even _devastatingly handsome_ didn't begin to do him justice. He wasn't just attractive; he was charismatic, charming, intelligent, and witty. Any girl would be lucky to have him, but for some reason he wanted her.

She shrugged nonchalantly, lowering her eyes. "Well, you're not so bad," she said. "I've seen worse."

He might've been obligingly incredulous had he not spotted the hints of a smile she couldn't seem to keep completely off of her face. She kept her eyes downcast – wise, because Rikku had never been able to lie with her eyes. At least, not to him.

He watched her intently for a moment, smirking as she squirmed under his intent scrutiny. Then her lips twitched just a little, betraying her amusement.

"_Rikku_…"

She ducked from beneath his grasping hands, nearly falling from her chair in her effort to escape his retribution.

"You _deserved _that," she cried, shrieking with laughter as his hands grazed her waist. She slipped through his fingers at every turn. "Your ego's bigger than Paine's, I swear! _Someone's_ got to take you down a few – hey, _that's_ not fair!"

He'd caught her by the dangling strings of her bikini top, and the whole thing threatened to fall away if she tried to escape.

"_Life's_ not fair," he countered, backing her into a convenient corner. "By the way," he murmured in her ear, "as the victor of this battle, I intend to get a kiss for my trouble."

She threw back her head and laughed.

"You're impossible," she told him, smiling, as he bent his head towards hers.

Several hours later, she bounded up the stairs to retrieve her 'liberated' trinkets before she left. She was pleased to find them all neatly arranged in their proper compartments, but the thing that most drew her attention was the label he'd written in himself on an as-yet-unassigned bin. Right there between _Rikku's jewelry_ and _Rikku's ribbons_, he'd written in _Rikku's heart_.

A tiny laugh gurgled up in her throat. Probably he didn't know it, but he'd stolen her heart a long time ago. And she'd finally decided to let him keep it.

--

He felt like it was their own special game – their 'couple' thing, even though they weren't technically that. Yet. But they _would_ be. He had confidence in his charm and his powers of persuasion. And really, Rikku couldn't be _that_ indifferent to him if she let him stick his tongue in her mouth as often as she did.

He slipped his fingers into the pouch at her waist, nimbly filching the contents. He was smooth – he made sure to jostle her just a little so she wouldn't feel the latch give under the gentle pressure of his fingers, then he made sure to keep her distracted so she wouldn't notice the disappearance of her things. It didn't take much, just a disarming smile and a kiss brushed across her cheek as he shoved the collected items into his pocket.

Then he excused himself on the premise of getting her a cold drink, and retreated to the kitchen to examine his loot. She never carried much in her pouch – it was too easy a mark for thieves, and she knew it. Usually it was just some candy, a pen, maybe a tube of lip gloss, and mirror.

This time his fingers closed around an unfamiliar object – hard and smooth. He pulled it from amidst the rest of the items lifted from her pouch, extracting it from his pocket, only to find his fingers grasping around a small, shiny red stone in the shape of a heart.

It was her answer to his unspoken question. He curled his fingers protectively around the small stone, heading straight for the stairs.

He opened his nightstand drawer, drawing out the bin with _Rikku's heart_ written on it, carefully setting the tiny heart inside.

A small sound behind him made him look back – and there she was, standing in the doorway, watching curiously.

"How'd you do today?" She asked, indicating the small drawers that were obviously filled with her pilfered things.

"Not too bad," he said, slipping his arm around her waist. "I got a couple of rubber bands, some jewelry, a few pieces of candy, and a heart."

Her lips twitched as he bent to kiss her. "I guess that's not bad, for a bit of petty theft."


End file.
